Broken Wings
by Water Oracle Delphi
Summary: Sometimes the only way for something to heal properly is to break it again. But sometimes, it only makes things worse. Is Robin really willing to go this far to stop the man who took everything for him? Or will his friends try to stop him in time?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer:I do not own Young Justice

Episodes reaction: I always seem to be commenting on the episodes that were aired so I decide it will get its own section lol. Anyways, is anyone else annoyed by how useless Robin seems in the Young Justice series? I mean despite the fact that he's the most experienced of the group he always seems to be losing his fights. He's not even in a third of the series! He seems to be a glorified door opener for the team. *sigh*

AN: Yeah…so this is kind of a sequel to Mother's Wings, but you don't really need to read it if you don't want. I just might reference a couple of things form there. So there is some kind of pre-established relationship between Conner and Dick, just so you know, but I don't think this story will be focused on it really. Maybe, depends how its all flows.

* * *

><p>-G-o-t-h-a-m- -C-i-t-y-<p>

The sound of rushing water could be heard when you entered the large room. Aside from the unmade king side bed pressed against the center of the left wall, the room was in perfect order. All the drawers were pushed in, all the pens and pencils in their respective cups on the desk, there wasn't even any loose articles of clothing laying on the floor. It was hard to believe that this room belonged to a teenage boy. More like some middle age neat freak, especially since the large flat screen opposite of the bed was currently settled on the news instead of something more artificial. The two anchors were chatting without any words as the green MUTE sign floated in the lower right hand corner.

Steam seeped into the room as it accompanied a young, dark haired male. Around his waist there hung a white terry cloth towel while a second was currently being used to dry off his hair. As ice blue eyes focused on the television screen, he let the towel drop to his shoulder. The fact that it was one mute didn't deter the male from watching. The two anchors were chatting about some sort of new product that might prove to be dangerous to children. It wasn't all that interesting, he was about to find the remote to turn it off when suddenly they all tensed. One of the anchor's reached up and grabbed onto the small headphone in his ear. His face serious as his co-anchor stares at him. The dark haired male watched the man's lips with a new interest.

"_This just in! There has been a prison break at Bla-" _The screen turned off with a blup, startlingly the young man. Looking around for the source, he noticed a familiar frown directed at him from his doorway. One that was holding on to the remote. Sheepishly, the raven rubbed the back of his neck and smiled guilty.

"Hey Alfred"

"Master Richard. What have I told both you and Master Bruce one several occasions?" Alfred asked as he placed the remote down on the dresser that it was perfectly parallel. "No watching the News first before school or work. You two will never be able to concentrate and the Dynamic Duo do not do mornings. Now hurry up or you'll be late for class."

Dick laughed and held up his hands in surrender to his guardian's guardian. "Alright, alright. I get it already. I'll get ready now."

Satisfied that the young man would no longer be distracted, the elderly butler left the room. With a sigh and a longing look at the black screen, the young millionaire got dressed for the most boring part of his life: school. He assembled his school uniform easily, having long ago set a routine to minimize the time it took. Richard Grayson was anything but inefficient. He grabbed his jacket and ran out the door. Seeing the banister up ahead, he quickly slipped into the blazer and took a running jump. He slid down the railing, flipping off right before he could crash into the thick wooden ornament that decorated the ends. As he stuck the landing, his stuck his arms out like a Olympic gymnast.

"I'd give it a 9 sir." Alfred said as he slipped the other's backpack on through his outstretched arms.

"A 9?" Robin asked incredulously, lowering his arms and grabbing onto the strap of the back. "Did you not see that amazing take off?"

"The landing was a bit premature." Voicing his own opinion with a grin, Bruce Wayne walked into the foyer.

Alfred nodded. "My thoughts exactly, sir."

"Everyone's a critic." Richard mumbled, before returning his attention to the others. "What are you still doing here? You're usually at work by now."

Bruce shrugged his shoulder. "I have a meeting so I thought I'd ride with you. Or would that be to embarrassing at your age?"

"Seriously?" Richard asked, his excitement showing. Between school, clubs, work, parties, the League, Young Justice, and being Gotham's Batman and Robin, Dick rarely had any time to hang out with Bruce. As they both headed towards the limo together, they talked about all sorts of random things that had absolutely nothing to do with them. Just as they were on the topic of a new movie coming out, the driver pulled them off the estate and into a sea of people.

Both males tensed as the reporters swarmed the vehicle, rapping against the windows as they yelled at the top of their lungs. One or two reporters weren't an uncommon sight at the front of Wayne Manor, but this was ridiculous. With an affirmative nod for his adoptive son, Bruce rolled down one of the windows and several arms stuck themselves through.

"RICHARD GRAYSON! WHAT IS YOUR REACTION TO THIS NEWS?"

"BRUCE WAYNE, WHAT SORT OF ACTIONS WILL YOU BE TAKING?"

"HOW DOSE IT FEEL KNOWING YOUR PARENTS' MURDERER HAS ESCAPED?"

At first the jumble of words and shouts made no sense to the two, but everything was starting to make sense.

"W-what did you just say?" Dick asked, paling quite visibly.

"You mean you didn't hear? Tony Zucco has escaped from Blackgate Penitentiary this morning!"

"Take us back!" Bruce barked at the driver, rolling up the window much to the protest of the reporters. The car back up immediately, getting as far away from the reporters as possible. The short drive to the porch was silent as Dick tried to process what he just heard. How could this happen? This wasn't real.

"Richard." Bruce said softly, as he touched his ward's shoulder. Dick looked up and saw that at some point the limo had stopped and Bruce had opened his door. "Go inside, Richard. I'll take care of this. Do you understand me? Everything will be okay."

Out of reflex, he nodded but there was no real feeling behind it. He allowed himself to be ushered over to Alfred who took him to his room.

_How does it feel knowing your parents' murder has escaped?_

'Cold.' He thought as he buried himself into his blankets, unsure of when exactly he had gotten into the bed. 'I feel cold.'

-M-t.-J-u-s-t-i-c-e-

"Conner," Aqualad called out as he poked his head into the training room, unsure if the other male was there or not. The clank of metal being set down, notified the Atlantian that the clone was indeed there. "Batman has called an emergency meeting for the entire team. Wally and Artemis are on their way."

Superboy frowned as he grabbed the towel that way lying beside him, wiping the sweat from his face before swinging it over his shoulder. "But Robin's not here."

"Perhaps he too in on route. I am not sure, Batman may have the answer for you. I just know that we are needed right away."

Conner nodded his understanding and followed his leader out the door, they made a stop at the kitchen and picked up M'gann. At some point the entrance announced the arrival of Kid Flash and Artemis. They greeted each other warmly, and made their way towards the conference area. The large blue tinted holographic screen already had the blown up face of the dark knight staring down at them.

"Dude, are you calling us from the Batcave?" Kid Flash asked excitedly as he noticed the scenery around Batman. Or rather, the lack of. All the group could see was a few stone walls and darkness, not exactly the most human friendly background. But the guy was called Batman for a reason.

"Shut up Wally." Artemis scowled, hitting the red head. Hard.

"Ow~" He whined as he rubbed his arm. Aqualad stepped in between the two in order for them to stop squabbling.

"You said you have a mission for us?" He asked loudly, subtly telling the arguing two to pay attention.

Batman ignored the two who were sheepishly rubbing the back of their necks and focused on their leader.

"…yes. This," the profile of an older man appeared as the video of batman shrank in size and moved over to the far left corner, "is Tony Zucco. The head of a powerful mafia and had in a hand in a lot of shady dealings. Problem was that no one could pin anything on him. Evidence kept disappearing and witness never stood up. It wasn't until four years ago that they were able to finally pin him down with something. He was sent to Blackgate Penitentiary for two consecutive life sentences for the Grayson murders. And now he has escaped."

"I do not mean to be rude Batman," Aqualad interrupted as he looked at the video link of their team's boss. "But this does not seem like a league problem. Would this not be a matter for the Gotham police to handle?"

The dark knight stared silently at the team, causing them all to become suddenly nervous. After a long pause, he finally spoke to them. "Yes. But the target you are going to apprehend is not Zucco." He turned away, pushing a couple of buttons. The holographic monitored soon became clustered with newspaper clippings and amateurish photos. A league styled profile pop up on top of the previous images, causing the group to stare in shocked horror.

"You got to be kidding me." Kid Flash said as he stared at an all too familiar face. "You want us to capture…"

"Robin." Superboy said quietly as he reached out to touch the image of the youngest member of their team.

Batman nodded solemnly.

-E-l-s-e-w-h-e-r-e-

Robin pulled the binoculars away from his eyes, but continued to stare down at the man who had "created" him. It was still bright, though most of the street was deserted. But the Boy Wonder knew better to leave anything to chance as he hid in the shadows of the roof. He watched as the man he hated about all else shake hands with the owner of the club behind them. He continued to keep his eyes focused on the two until they retreated into the closed building.

How easy it would be to do this. The thought should have scared him, but Robin found himself completely numb. With three consecutive life sentences, he never thought that he would have to face this bastard again. No, that was a lie. He often thought about facing the one who had broken him so long ago. But he had always been calm when he thought about it, because this monster wasn't worth his anger, his hatred. He always had Bruce by his side in these scenarios and more recently, Conner was there as well. But now he was standing alone on the roof, readying himself for the confrontation of his life time.

They wouldn't understand.

He had to do this.

They wouldn't understand.

He couldn't let this happen again.

They wouldn't understand.

And they would hate him for this.

He felt something inside him waver as he thought of the reaction he would get from his teammates. But now was not the time for this. It was already too late. He slipped his fingers into one of the many contraptions of his belt and pulled out a photo. The face of the smiley girl within it steeled his resolve. He would this even if he became hated, even if it turned his friends against him, turned his father against him.

It was all so ironic. Robin was supposed to be the "light" to Batman's "dark". Yet here he was, about to do something darker than anything that Batman had ever done. Could he return to being that light after all this was done? Probably not. Even now after all the years of living in Gotham and fighting some of the most disturbing people in the world, it was getting harder to be "Robin". Maybe he would need to take a new name. But now was not the time to think about that.

Now he needed to wait for the sun to set, he needed to wait for the night to come. Then he would begin.

* * *

><p>AN: Hmmm, probably the longest chapter I have ever written. I think my writing has improved quite a bit since Mother's Wings, but many it's just me. Anyways, please review and don't just favoriteAlert it. Because you can always unfavorite/Alert it, but you can't unreview something. Besides, reviews made me giggle and squeal like a fangirl.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: Alerts: 33 Favorites: 17 Reviews: 11  
>…you just doing this to screw with me aren't you. Sigh. Anyway, wow. Lots of emails from fanfiction for the prologue, that kinda puts the pressure on. Now I'm gonna feel insecure about the rest of the story lol. Uh…I don't think I mentioned this before but this is definitely going to be really slow moving because I'm not a good writer and I don't plan out these chapters ahead of time. So sorry for those who had to wait more than a month to read this chapter.<p>

Disclaimer: I do not own Young Justice

Thanks to roguelegacy, SoNoKnows, fire-blossom19, ajas136, animecutie610, Reina Grayson, AmaraRae, TheGrayson for all of the positive reviews and the sound track.

Kithren: Thanks for reading the first story! Im not sure how much Con/Rob will be in this story in all honesty. It kinda depends on the reviews and how I feel.

TheWickedWizardOfOz: Damn, I thought it got the way Kaldur spoke down. Thanks for the heads up, I think I fixed it up now. XD I hadn't thought about the whole "the light" thing actually, but ill take credit for it. It was more of a hint at Robin's translation to Nightwing lol.

Zory22: I'm glad you liked it! No! I love that you nitpick! That's what helps me improve as a writer! I generally rely on Microsoft Word so I never really go back to spell check unless there is a red squiggle. So thanks for pointing the mistakes out, I think I got them all. Let me know if you catch anymore.

* * *

><p>-G-O-T-H-A-M- -C-I-T-Y-<p>

"Hey man come on." A blonde teen protested as he was manhandled and tossed outside into the backalley of the club. He tripped over his own feet and hit the cement sidewalk hard. He flipped over and glared at the man with his magic eight ball eyes, not caring that the man was towering over him. "I'm not some piece of shit that you can toss around like that! Let me back in!" He was trying to be demanding, that much was obvious, but the words came out as a whine. Like a child demanding to stay up past his bedtime. The bouncer sighed, looking both tired and annoyed.

"Look kid. Gotham is a dangerous place, especially at night. Get home before you end up dead, or worse. Your family's probably worried about you anyways." With that the burly man retreated back into the club, leaving the blonde standing in a deserted alleyway. The blonde got off the ground and brushed the dirt off his pants. He stared at the door for a moment, contemplating, before reaching up and pulling off the wig. He disposed of it along with the colored contacts that changed his eyes from their original blue to the strange pattern he had chosen. Producing a small grappling hook from his pocket, the raven hair boy launched it and went flying.

Wow. A nice bouncer, that's the last thing you'd expect from a place like this. And yes that was what constitutes as nice in this city. Anyone else would have attempted to beat the shit out of him for pleasure than proceed to mugging him. This was fucking Gotham City. Everyone was dirty; the criminals, the cops, the sweet old lady who lives next door. No one was nice here. His feet hit the solidness of the roof top that he had chosen previously as he pondered the concept. He wasted no time in changing out of the loose articles of street clothing and slipping into a much more familiar costume. He smoothed the domino mask over his face and glanced down.

He had almost made a mistake. He didn't care if any of dirtbags or vermin of Gotham got involved with his revenge, but he had almost endangered the lives of innocents as well. He sighed. He had only been alone for a night and he was already starting to lose it. He couldn't do this alone, not all of it at least. He needed help, but he couldn't involve them with this. He wouldn't drag them down with him. Letting out another sigh, he opened up his holographic keypad and began to get to work. He would have to be delicate if he didn't want to alert the Bat.

-M-OU-N-T- -J-U-S-T-I-C-E-

The tension in the room was thick. This was a lot of unexpected news. Robin, the youngest and most experienced member of their team, their friend, had gone rouge. And they were expected to bring him in. Why them? What were they supposed to be able to do if the world's greatest detective couldn't find him? "He may try to contact you." That was all they had been told before Batman had cut of their connection.

That was a little over half an hour ago. Now, the team had relocated into the living room area to sit down. No one seemed to have anything to say. Conner just stared at the muted static on the television, trying not to feel or think about anything. M'gann wrung her hands, wanting nothing more than to retreat into the kitchen and cook something but stayed because she felt like she needed to be with the team. Wally was vibrating in his seat, tapping his heels at a hundred miles per hour. Kaldur stared at a random spot in space as he rested the lower half of his hands on his clasped hands. Artemis focused on the arrow in her hand, rubbing her thumb over the arrowhead.

"This is bull shit!" Conner suddenly declared, standing up and glaring at his teammates.

"Superboy, I know this is hard-"

"No! Robin would do this kind of thing! Wally, say something!"

"I-I don't know." The red headed said, his foot tapping picking up speed. "Rob's always been-"

The lighting turned red suddenly and the emergency siren began to go off. The rest of the team jumped to their feet. They had gotten into a good flow recently. Miss Martian didn't even need to be told to set up the telepathic link anymore. They wasted no time heading for the main computer in the mountain base, ready to demand answers for what had tripped the alarm.

"Hey guys." The Boy Wonder said with a grin as if it was any other day and he was just letting the team know he was on his way. As if he wasn't current on the top of their "must apprehend" list.

"Rob, what the hell is going on?" Wally demanded as he got over the initial shock that their "target" had just contacted them himself.

"I guess Batman has told you the situation by now, huh. Did he ask you to stop me?"

It was Kaldur that replied. He didn't like this, but he was the leader. Even if it hurt him, hurt the team, he had to make the right thing. "If you do not turn yourself in, we will have to. Please Robin, stop this. We do not wish to do this."

"That's actually what I'm calling about." Robin said, his causal grin disappearing squickly "Don't try to stop me, you won't be able to. This is something I have to do, something I should have done a long time ago. If you interfere in any way, I will take you down. This is the only warning you'll get."

Before anyone could say anything else, the screen went blank. A moment of complete silence.

"Shouldn't we do something?" Artemis asked, looking at their leader. "Like tell Batman or something?"

"Wouldn't do any good." Wally intercepted as he rapidly pushed buttons on the screen. "This is usually Robin's specially, but I managed to pick up a few things. From what I can tell he rerouted the transmission a couple times over before sending it here. By the time we get to the original source, he'll be long gone."

"Well than what do we do?" Conner demanded, clenching his fists in frustration. M'gann wrung her hands together in despair, tears beginning to form in the corner of her eyes. This felt so wrong.

"Calm down." Kaldur commanded. "Wally. Can you replay the message? We may be able to see something in the background that will tell us Robin's location."

Wally nodded, hitting a few buttons before stepping back to watch the recording with the others.

"There!" Kaldur called out, pointing at something in the far corner. Wally hit a few buttons, pausing and zooming into the specified spot. "What is that."

"It looks like some kind of artwork." M'gann commented, tilting her head to the side.

"That? Its graffiti. Not exactly a landmark." Wally said uneasily.

"Its not just graffiti." Artemis said excitedly, moving closer to Wally. "It's a tag. I recognize it, it belongs to one of the gangs in Gotham. This means that Robin's somewhere in their territory. Pull up a map and I can show you."

"It may not be coordinates, but it is the best we have." Kaldur said, nodding his approval.

"How do you know Gotham gang insignias?" Wally asked curiously as he tried to find a map of Gotham.

"Um…I just happen to run into this one once before."

-G-O-T-H-A-M- -C-I-T-Y-

Robin tossed the heavy black case down onto the roof. You really could find just about anything on the streets of Gotham, if you knew the right people. Having fought with and arrested a good majority of black market smugglers, he knew the right people and more importantly he knew where to find them. Unbuckling the clasps on the side, he gazed down at the CheyTac m200 sniper rifle. He reached out and gently ran his hand over the shiny metal of the gun. He could feel the cold even though the protection of his gloves.

It should have been rather easy to put together, but the assembly took the Boy Wonder some time. The weight of the gun's parts felt awkward in his hand. But he was a genius, he figured it out after a bit of fumbling and propped the end over the side of the roof. Peering into the scope, he aimed the barrel towards the club. He waited and watched as he saw Zucco step out of his limo with his bodyguards. This bastard was just too cocky, strutting around Gotham like he owned the city. Robin's finger resting gently on the trigger began to pull back slowly. It would all end tonight.

* * *

><p>And that is the first chapter of the story, or maybe second depending on how you wanna take it. Hope you liked it as much as the pervious chapter, though I'm not to proud of it. I had a whole club scene planed for the beginning, but I couldn't find the right words for some of the moments so I axed it out. I might rewrite it at one point.<p>

There are probably a few things I should claifiy. I know nothing about any of the Robins except for what I have seen in the cartoons. So I did a bit of research on Dick Grayson via wikipeidia. Apparently as a part of his training he had to hide from Batman for a full night in Gotham without getting caught. Not only did he manage to avoid the world's greatest detective, he managed to bag a few bad guys along the way. That's why I had Batman pass the buck on to the team. Also I know nothing about rerouting messages or anything about guns, so if I screwed something up with that sorry.

As always please Review. Just put a simply face or something, just let me know your opinion.


End file.
